Passage 1 Copy your neighbour

SECTION 1
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.

Copy your neighbour

A
THERE’S no animal that symbolises rainforest diversity quite as spectacularly as the
tropical butterfly. Anyone lucky enough to see these creatures flitting between patches
of sunlight cannot fail to be impressed by the variety of their patterns. But why do they
display such colourful exuberance? Until recently, this was almost as pertinent a
question as it had been when the 19th-century naturalists, armed only with butterfly
nets and insatiable curiosity, battle through the rainforests. These early explorers soon
realised that although some of the butterflies’ bright colours are there to attract a mate,
others are warning signals. They send out a message to any predators: “Keep off, we’re
poisonous.” And because wearing certain patterns affords protection, other species
copy them. Biologists use the term “mimicry rings” for these clusters of impostors and
their evolutionary idol.
B
But here’s the conundrum. “Classical mimicry theory says that only a single ring should
be found in any one area,” explains George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum,
London. The idea is that in each locality there should be just the one pattern that best
protects its wearers. Predators would quickly learn to avoid it and eventually all mimetic
species in a region should converge upon it. “The fact that this is patently not the case
has been one of the major problems in mimicry research,” says Beccaloni. In pursuit of a
solution to the mystery of mimetic exuberance, Beccaloni set off for one of the
megacentres for butterfly diversity, the point where the western edge of the Amazon
basin meets the foothills of the Andes in Ecuador. “It’s exceptionally rich, but
comparatively well collected, so I pretty much knew what was there, says Beccaloni.”
The trick was to work out how all the butterflies were organised and how this related to
mimicry.
C
Working at the Jatun Sach Biological Research Station on the banks of the Rio Napo,
Beccaloni focused his attention on a group of butterflies called ithomiines. These distant

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relatives of Britain’s Camberwell Beauty are abundant throughout Central and South
America and the Caribbean. They are famous for their bright colours, toxic bodies and
complex mimetic relationships. “They can comprise up to 85 per cent of the individuals
in a mimicry ring and their patterns are mimicked not just by butterflies, but by other
insects as diverse as damselflies and true bugs,” says Philip DeVries of the Milwaukee
Public Museum’s Center for Biodiversity Studies.
D
Even though all ithomiines are poisonous, it is in their interests to evolve to look like one
another because predators that learn to avoid one species will also avoid others that
resemble it. This is known as Müllerian mimicry. Mimicry rings may also contain insects
that are not toxic, but gain protection by looking likes a model species that is: an
adaptation called Batesian mimicry. So strong is an experienced predator’s avoidance
response that even quite inept resemblance gives some protection. “Often there will be
a whole series of species that mimic, with varying degrees of verisimilitude, a focal or
model species,” says John Turner from the University of Leeds. “The results of these
deceptions are some of the most exquisite examples of evolution known to science.” In
addition to colour, many mimics copy behaviours and even the flight pattern of their
model species.
E
But why are there so many different mimicry rings? One idea is that species flying at the
same height in the forest canopy evolve to look like one another. “It had been suggested
since the 1970s that mimicry complexes were stratified by flight height,” says DeVries.
The idea is that wing colour patterns are camouflaged against the different patterns of
light and shadow at each level in the canopy, providing a first line of defence against
predators.” But the light patterns and wing patterns don’t match very well,” he says.
And observations show that the insects do not shift in height as the day progresses and
the light patterns change. Worse still, according to DeVries, this theory doesn’t explain
why the model species is flying at that particular height in the first place.
F
“When I first went out to Ecuador, I didn’t believe the flight height hypothesis and set
out to test it,” says Beccaloni. “A few weeks with the collecting net convinced me
otherwise. They really flew that way.” What he didn’t accept, however, was the
explanation about light patterns. “I thought, if this idea really is true, can I can work out
why, it could help explain why there are so many different warning patterns in any not
place. Then we might finally understand how they could evolve in such a complex way.”
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The job was complicated by the sheer diversity of species involved at Jatun Sach. Not
only were there 56 ithomiine butterfly species divided among eight mimicry rings, there
were also 69 other insect species, including 34 day-flying moths and a damselfly, all in a
200-hectare study area. Like many entomologists before him, Beccaloni used a large
bag-like net to capture his prey. This allowed him to sample the 2.5 metres immediately
above the forest floor. Unlike many previous workers, he kept very precise notes on
exactly where he caught his specimens.
G
The attention to detail paid off. Beccaloni found that the mimicry rings were flying at
two quite separate altitudes. “Their use of the forest was quite distinctive,” he recalls.
“For example, most members of the clear-winged mimicry ring would fly close to the
forest floor, while the majority of the 12 species in the tiger-winged ring fly high up.”
Each mimicry wing had its own characteristic flight height.
H
However, this being practice rather than theory, things were a bit fuzzy. “They’d spend
the majority of their time flying at a certain height. But they’d also spend a smaller
proportion of their time flying at other heights,” Beccaloni admits. Species weren’t
stacked rigidly like passenger jets waiting to land, but they did appear to have a
preferred airspace in the forest. So far, so good, but he still hadn’t explained what
causes the various groups of ithomiines and their chromatic consorts to fly in formations
at these particular heights.
I
Then Beccaloni had a bright idea. “I started looking at the distribution of ithomiine larval
food plants within the canopy,” he says. “For each one I’d record the height to which
the host plant grew and the height above the ground at which the eggs or larvae were
found. Once I got them back to the field station’s lab, it was just a matter of keeping
them alive until they pupated and then hatched into adults which I could identify.”

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Passage 1 Copy your neighbour

Questions 1-5
The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter A-I, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.

1 Criticism against flight height theory of butterfly

2 Explained why Beccaloni carried out research in Ecuador.
3 Different mimicry ring flies at different height
4 The method of catching butterfly by Beccaloni
5 Not all Mimicry patterns are toxic information sent out from insects.

Questions 6-11
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement is true
FALSE if the statement is false
NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

6 All butterflies’ colours of wings reflect the sense of warning to other predators.
7 Insects may imitate butterflies’ wing pattern as well.
8 Flying Altitude of butterfly is determined by their food.
9 Beccaloni agreed with flight height hypothesis and decided to reassure its validity.
10 Jatun Sacha has the richest diversity of breeds in the world.
11 Beccaloni has more detailed records on the location of butterfly collection than
others.

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Passage 1 Copy your neighbour

Questions 12-13
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D
Write your answers in boxes 12-13 on your answer sheet.

12 Which is correct about butterflies flight altitude?

A Flight height theory already established
B Butterfly always flies at a certain height
C It is like the airplane’s flying phenomenon
D Each butterfly has its own favorable height

13 Which is correct about Beccaloni next investigation after flight height?

A Some certain statistics have already been collected
B Try to find connections between larval height and adult ones
C It’s very difficult to raise butterfly larval
D Different larval favors different kinds of trees

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ANSWER

1. E
2. B
3. G
4. F
5. D
6. FALSE
7. TRUE
8. NOT GIVEN
9. FALSE
10. NOT GIVEN
11. TRUE
12. D
13. B